THERE was some wuss on the radio the other morning wittering on about house prices.

He had, he said, both good and bad news.

The cost of a house was still, phew, climbing by around 14 per cent per annum but, bring out the hankies, the rate at which they were increasing, sob, was not.

Listen up cup cake. You got it the wrong way round.

The fact that the average price now comes in at around £145,000, and considerably more in what they call the hotspots, is not just bad, but catastrophic news.

How the hell is anyone earning normal wages, doing a normal job, supposed to get on the blessed property ladder at all? It's madness when, in places such as Edinburgh, essential workers including nurses, teachers and ambulance staff can't afford to buy in the capital but are forced out to its peripheral areas.

Meanwhile, grown-up kids are now having to stay with their parents until they're in their thirties, while they save for that all-important deposit - which is also rapidly rising.

The root of the problem is that we have come to think of our houses as purely a potential asset - something to be bought and sold and to make us big bucks.

They're not somewhere to live, relax and raise our families but another commodity.

Worse, if you don't have one, then you're a failure, a loser, so you'd better beg, borrow or steal, even lie about how much you earn, to get that mortgage quick.

You may be up to your oxters in debt until the day you turn up your toes, but you'll be on a par with the Jones's, so don't worry.

In fact, re-mortgage and buy yourself a second holiday home in some rural paradise. Of course, that'll bump up the prices for the natives - are you hearing me Jack - but that's their look-out.

Tough gorgonzola if their wages are low and they can't compete with the townies.

Let them live in tents.

But, really, the only one who makes a killing out of all this, apart from estate agents and lawyers (don't start me), is the Chancellor. Gordon gets the stamp duty while we're alive and claws in the inheritance tax when we die.

For the most of us, it's nothing but monopoly money.

Take me. According to the experts, my house currently earns more than I do. Terrific.

Except, if I was to sell it, unless I moved into a caravan, I'd need every last penny of my alleged profit to buy my next house.

If they knocked a nought off every house price and every mortgage tomorrow, it wouldn't be a day too soon. Then we might stop this crazy escalation. The good news will only come when we regain some sanity and EVERYONE can afford a home of their own - a home, not a house.

How is anyone doing a normal job supposed to get on that blessed property ladder at all?